Feel A Whole Lot Better

The other night, Thursday to be exact, we went to see Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen. It was a nice contrast to the heaviness of last week's jury duty. Ick.

Of course, Hillman was in two of my favorite bands, The Byrds (above) and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Pedersen has played with about everybody who ever did the country-rock thing — I'm a big fan of the records he did with The Dillards (Copperfields and Wheatstraw Suite).

Thinking about Hillman, I realized what a huge influence he's had on my appreciation of Country Music — adding to the Johnny Cash fandom I inherited from my Dad. The Byrds' and Burritos' covers lead me to the Louvin Brothers, Buck Owens, Hank Snow and on and on. And for all that, in addition to masterpieces like The Notorious Byrd Brothers and Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, I can't thank them enough. And I'm sure there's plenty of other alt-country fans out there who were educated the same way.

Lately, I've been all over those Sundazed mono mixes of the first four Byrds LPs. When it comes to mid-60s rock, people, mono's where it's at.

A few tools, an old VW, and a whole lot of "what the hell?"

Sitting around the courthouse yesterday, I trolled the many Volkswagen restoration sites and blogs out there. Came across this, which someone scanned outta Mechanix Illustrated.

My bug, a '74, is yellow. I won't take the color of this bitchin' camper as some sort of sign — and start making with the hacksaw. But this is a very cool thing.

However, I bet getting it up I-77 into Virginia would be one long, slow, white-nuckle ride. Note the aerodynamic windshield.

Does this make me Commissioner Gordon?

Here I sit in the "jury lounge" of the Wake County Courthouse, nursing this laptop through some very terrible wireless signals — all in an attempt at doing some work while waiting to be called to some courtroom downstairs.

Thought I'd put this overdue Halloween picture up. Months ago, Presley wanted to be the Pink Panther, so Jennifer started sorting out how she was going to pull it off. It was going to be very very hard. (Last year's masterful Herbie The Love Bug set the bar very very high.)

Next, Presley wanted to be a flower. Easier than the Pink Panther, for sure.

Then she came to the realization that she should be Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees. Huh?

Let's see, one of those shirts with the weird yoke, a drum with the Monkees logo and a curly wig? Would that do it? And would any of the other kids wandering around Cary, North Carolina, have a clue as to who she was? And do we really care? She'd certainly get points for originality — and maybe a few more for out and out weirdness.

But in the end, she settled on Batgirl, as seen below.

No crimes were solved, but much candy was secured. And the Batarangs absolutely refused to stay in her utility belt.



We went to the Museum Of History which had a special Halloween thing going on. A TV crew was there and Presley/Batgirl somehow ended up on TV.